The Stranger
by briwd
Summary: Rizzoli and Isles meet a certain former federal agent with an urgent message. COMPLETE. Written for the NFA The Rest Is Still Unwritten challenge.
1. Chapter 1

**Boston**

Detective Jane Rizzoli walked into the Dirty Robber restaurant, hungry, thirsty and anxious for this worst-day-ever to come to an end.

She saw her best friend - Dr. Maura Isles - sitting at their customary table, with a salad and drink on Maura's side, and a double cheeseburger, fries and beer on Jane's.

"I _owe _you big time," Jane said, looking like she needed a few days' sleep.

"Don't worry about it," Maura replied. "I _would _say you ought to be in bed. But, you probably would starve."

"I'm not _that _bad off," Jane said, biting into her burger. "Everything's just...crazy and hectic right now. Ma's calling me every half hour, Frankie's trying to cover for me when I don't need to be covered, Korsak and Frost are busy as hell with their own-"

"Jane. Say no more," Maura said, pointing to Jane's plate. "_Eat_."

Jane ate her dinner, while Maura picked at her salad.

"Everything okay, Maur?" Jane asked, between bites.

"Yeah," Maura answered. "Just had the most unusual feeling, which probably doesn't mean anything, given that it's a feeling without a logical nor a factual basis in reality-"

"Maura," Jane said, "sometimes feelings mean something."

"But it doesn't make any sense-_ohmigod_!" Maura gasped, looking over towards the bar.

"You're freaked out about the _bar_?" Jane said.

"No," Maura said. "It's who's _at _the bar."

There was just one person at the bar, a young woman with her hair pulled back.

"You're overreacting," Jane said. "There's nobody there except the bartender."

"And _her_," Maura said of the young woman. "Doesn't she look suspicious to you?" Maura whispered to Jane.

Jane rolled her eyes, then had a thought, leaning in over her plate.

"Why _yes_, Maura," Jane answered, looking back and forth between Maura and the bar.

"I'm sorry I couldn't say anything due to the investigation. But that woman over there...she's one of the _Feds_."

Maura looked at Jane, and back at the woman at the bar, then back at Jane...then back at the woman...and back to Jane.

"The _Feds_?" Maura said.

"_Yes_," Jane replied. "She's one of their agents. The investigation. Which I _can't_ talk about."

Maura leaned in. "Who's being investigated?" she asked, in a very low whisper.

"_Him_."

"Him?"

"_Yeah_..._him_."

"Who's him, _he_?"

Jane leaned in. "I _can't _say," she said in a low whisper, then leaned back with a wink and a smile.

Maura finally grasped that Jane was completely joking around, and smiled.

"Oh, she's nobody," Maura said, going back to eating her salad.

"Well I wouldn't say that, but she's not one of the feds," Jane said. "Not that I _know _of...now what's going on that you were...feeling so freaked out?"

"I can't say for certain, logically," Maura said. "As I told you, it has no basis in fact nor logic. It was almost like...I was being watched."

"Watched? By whom?"

"Nobody, at least as far as I could tell. As I said-"

"-no logical or factual basis," Jane finished the sentence, grabbed her bottle of beer for a drink, and stopped in mid-swallow, before putting the bottle down.

"There _was _something," Jane said, "that Ma was talking about today. When we were in the cafe, and rushing to get some coffee before going back upstairs. I remember Ma saying something about a woman with a ponytail-"

"Now that you mention it, I remember the same thing," Maura said. "We were in a rush...I didn't notice her there, but I did see someone outside the morgue, briefly."

"WHat did she look like?" Jane asked.

"Just a glimpse, someone with a leather jacket, and a...ponytail...like..._her_."

Maura pointed towards the woman at the bar.

"I'll call Homicide," Jane said. "Korsak should still be there."

The woman at the bar got up, and began walking towards their table.

"Jane-"

"We're covered," Jane answered, reaching for her handgun.

The woman got there too quickly for Jane to get out of her seat and in front of Maura.

Instead, Jane pulled out her gun, pointing it directly at the stranger's head.

"I would not do that if I were you," the woman with the ponytail said.

"Who _are _you, lady?" Jane said. "And you better not pull anything here - on _anyone_."

"I am not here to pull _anything _on _anyone_," the woman continued, speaking with an accent.

"May I ask you something?" Maura said.

"Maura, I got this," Jane interjected.

"No, it is alright," the woman said.

"Were you outside the morgue at Boston police headquarters this afternoon?"

The woman paused. "Yes."

"Were you in the cafe?" Jane asked.

"Yes," the woman said.

"_Why_." Jane said, with a firm tone.

"Are you Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles?" she asked them both. "If you are, I have a message for you, Detective."

"Who _are _you, lady?" Jane said, "and if you try anything, and I mean _anything_-"

"The only thing I am _trying _to do is deliver a _message_!" the woman said, exasperated, throwing her hands in the air. "Americans! הם יכולים להיות כל כך מרגיזים!"

"Say _what_?" Jane said.

"Hebrew," Maura said. "I thought your accent sounded Israeli."

"Israeli?" Jane said. "That true?"

"It _is_," the woman answered.

"Then what in _hell _does an Israeli want with me?"

"To deliver a message," she said. "Casey Jones. Your fiancee. The man who asked to marry you. Do _NOT _marry him. He is _NOT _whom he claims to be. You are putting your _own _life and the lives of your friends and family in _danger _if you do so."

Then the woman kicked the gun out of Jane's hands, and kneed Jane in the stomach.

It was enough to knock the wind out of Jane - and allow the stranger enough time to speak to Maura before making her escape.

"Your friend will be fine," the woman said. "Tell her when she comes to she must heed my warning...Doctor Isles. If things go badly with Casey Jones, call the man on this card, and tell him Zee-vah sent you."

The woman ran off, seconds ahead of the Boston Police squad cars arriving on the scene.

Detective Frankie Rizzoli and four uniformed officers ran in, with customers pointing them to Jane and Maura's table.

"_Jane! Maura_!" Frankie yelled. "Are you two _okay_?!"

Before Maura turned her attention to Jane, she looked at the card.

_ANTHONY DINOZZO_

_NCIS_

_What on earth is going on,_ Maura thought. _NCIS? Israelis? And Casey presenting a danger to Jane?_


	2. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Between the information Jane, Maura and others gave the sketch artist; the security camera footage from the Dirty Robber; and a picture taken by a passerby of the woman running out the front door, Homicide learned fairly quickly who she was.

Then the feds took over - specifically, the FBI and something many in Boston PD had, surprisingly, not heard of: NCIS, Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

It didn't keep Jane, Korsak, Frost, and Maura, from looking into Casey Jones - who, as it turned out, was looking for Jane.

In the process, Casey murdered eight people, including an Army CID agent, and nearly killed Jane's brother, Tommy.

Jane was put into witness protection, but Casey still found her.

Jane heard him say a lot of things, all kinds of things, with an increasingly angry and erratic tone.

She only understood his accusations against her and Maura, and the horrible things he yelled and ranted and crazily babbled against Maura.

After threatening to kill Maura, he pulled his gun at Jane's forehead.

Jane thought she might be able to talk him down.

She never had the chance.

Casey was caught off guard by the door being kicked in, and two men he never saw before yelling at him to stand down.

"FEDERAL AGENTS!" the older one said.

"NCIS!" said the younger one, followed by another younger agent.

"PUT THE GUN DOWN, JONES! NOW!" the older one said.

Casey didn't comply. He put it next to Jane's temple.

"Give me your name," Jones growled. "NOW."

"Gibbs," the older agent said. "You don't have to do this Jones-"

"I'll do whatever I want," Jones muttered, pulling out another pistol from his back and aiming it at his own temple. "I'm taking Jane with me."

The standoff took two hours, until NCIS and Boston PD snipers were in a position to take out Jones.

Which they did.

Jane heard the window behind her shatter with two rifle shots, and Jones falling to the ground. Then, Gibbs and his agents, Tony DiNozzo and Tim McGee, rushing to her, checking on her safety and untying the ropes Jones bound her with.

"Blye," she heard Gibbs say into his cellphone. "Good shooting."

_Was it,_ Jane thought.

Then, Jane saw Frost, Korsak, Frankie, and a legion of Boston PD uniforms, along with two FBI agents rush in.

"Fornell!"

"Jane!"

"Are you okay!"

"Sis!"

Jane was in a daze. She barely remembered Frost, and Frankie, and Korsak there, and Cavanaugh in the stairwell of that dingy abandoned building.

The only other things she remembered clearly was DiNozzo and McGee escorting her outside, where Maura, Angela and Tommy were waiting.

The ride to the hospital, where Maura and Angela clung to her in the back of that ambulance.

And the dinner that night at the Dirty Robber, where the whole gang threw Jane an impromptu party.

As she and Maura sat at their usual booth, Jane's attention was drawn to the window.

She swore she saw that Ziva woman outside, ponytail and all.

"Maura! Look!" Jane said, pointing out the window.

Maura looked and saw no one outside; Jane looked again, and she was gone.

"Thought I saw her," Jane said.

Perhaps she had; as Agent Gibbs confided in her, Ziva had taken up the habit of showing up in the most unexpected places...sometimes more than once.


End file.
